Lightworks Tips: Organizing and Editing a Musical Sequence on Lightworks  Expanded Version -- Web Exclusive by Melissa Kent
	Before you begin, I recommend that you read in the Lightworks manual about using the "sync-ghost" function and the "align marks" function. These are tips for when sync music playback is involved. You are going to make a sync-ghost for every take that has music. Then you will assign to each ghost the exact same timecode as your playback track, thus keeping each daily perfectly in sync with the music. This is an electronic substitute for the good old music code numbers we used when editing on film. Hopefully your production sound mixer had two Nagras on the set -- one for playback and one to record production sound. When you get your dailies tape back from telecine, it will probably have every take synched up with production sound. Ditto if you synched your film yourself. Have the music playback track transferred at the end of your tape as a wild track. For each take create a sync-ghost by doing the following: 1. Click on the record viewer icon to open a new (empty) record viewer. 2. On your daily tile, MARK at the head and PARK at the tail. Hit REPLACE. You now have an edit with the entire daily in it. Rename the edit with the exact same name as your daily (e.g. 56A-1). 3. Listen to the music in this edit. If you have clicks at the head it will be easy to find a sync point with which to line up the wild music track. If the take is a pick-up, or does not have clicks, you will have to find another sync point. I suggest choosing a clean drum hit or guitar note, or even the first mod of a vocal -- whatever you can find with a distinctive first mod. PARK there. 4. On your playback track find the exact same mod and PARK there. 5. On your edit, turn off V and A1. Mark at the mod and park at the end of the edit. Hit REPLACE. You now have the song synched up from the middle to the end. The playback track is on A2. 6. Open the splice as a sync trim on A2 between the head of the music and the black that precedes it. Jump the splice to the HEAD of the edit. It is important that there be no splices within your edit. 7. Listen to your edit that now has two music tracks. Are they perfectly in sync with each other? If they are not, adjust the playback track on A2 by breaking it at the head and tail, on the inside of the splices, and slipping it a frame this way or that until you are satisfied it could not be any more perfect. 8. If the sync between the two tracks is way off, use "Align marks." Activate A1 and de-activate A2. Park on a distinctive click or mod and hit MARK. Then activate A2 and de-activate A1. Park on the same distinctive mod on A2 and hit MARK (You will have to adjust your mixer in order to hear one track at a time). Turn A1 back on. You now have a mark on each track in two different places. Break A2 at the head and the tail. Go into the screwdriver of the edit and highlight "ALIGN MARKS." It will adjust A2 to match Al. Hit "Deselect" You should be in sync now. If you are not satisfied repeat the process until you are. 9. You are adjusting only A2 here because we are assuming that A1 is in sync to picture. But because we know that telecine houses sometimes falter (ha ha) you should also make sure your music track looks in sync with the singers' lips and the instruments. Keep adjusting tracks until you are satisfied that Video, A1 and A2 are perfect. Now the moment you have been waiting for... 10. Go into the screwdriver of the edit monitor or its timeline. Highlight "Make sync-ghost." Your edit timeline will get a new color, and its name will change to the name of the daily (sync). For example, 56A-1(sync). You have just created an edit that can be used as a daily. 11. Now for the assigning of timecode. You will assign each take the same timecode as the VIDEO timecode of the playback music track. (This is the timecode from your Dailies tape; not its Nagra timecode). To do this, park on any frame within the ghost. Click on the upside down yellow triangle so you see the timecode information. De-Activate V and "A1." Hit "P" for "pop out original tile." It will pop out the playback track from A2. Open this tile to a monitor. It will display its timecode from your dailies tape. In the information under your sync-ghost's yellow triangle click on "Jump to" so that it says "Modify." (It will be red). Click on Video TC. Type in the exact video timecode from the playback track. Close the box with the timecode info. You have just changed the timecode of your ghost to match exactly the timecode of the playback track. 12. To check that you did this correctly, close the sync-ghost down to a small tile. Then click on the monitor icon within the tile to make it big again. Park on a random frame. Turn off V and A1. Hit "P" for Pop out original tile. Open it (the wild playback tile from A2) into a monitor. It will display its timecode for that frame. On your sync-ghost turn V and A1 back on. Now your sync ghost will display the timecode that you previously assigned to it, and it should match exactly the timecode on the playback tile that you just popped out!! 13. Repeat this process for every daily that syncs to the music playback. Believe me, it takes longer to read about it here than it takes to do it. Put these sync-ghosts in their own permanent gallery and name it something clever like "Scene 56(sync)." Into this gallery you should also put any MOS dailies from the scene. Tell your editor that she must use the dailies in this gallery when she cuts the scene, and she is to ignore the original dailies. 14. Now it's time to edit. Open a new record monitor. Turn off A1 and "A1." Cut the entire piece of music onto track A2. 15. Hit the small gray box on the bottom, near the left of the timeline ONE TIME. Now it displays the TIMECODE of the MUSIC PLAYBACK TRACK. This is the same timecode that you just assigned to your dailies. So if the first mod of the song is at timecode 08:48:10:12, then the corresponding picture for the first mod of the song is at timecode 08:48:10:12 on every take. 16. As you edit, choose a take, click on its viewer icon to make it big, and park on the frame that corresponds to timecode of the music track. Then on your edit, turn on V and A1 and turn off A2. MARK at the sync frame, PARK down the road where you want your piece to end, and hit REPLACE. 17. You may want to disregard production audio altogether and edit video solely to the playback track. The idea, of course, is to keep your picture perfectly in sync with your playback music. As you edit you can either go to a place in the music then check your picture choices for that moment - OR - you can go through your dailies and, when you find a piece you like, scroll down to that exact timecode on your music track. 18. When the sequence is complete you will notice that the source timecode is continuous from cut to cut. Also you can check sync at any time in your edit by turning the V on and off. The source timecode (as displayed next to the little gray box) should be exactly the same on the video track as on the audio track. 19. This is Important. When it is time to make an EDL or a CUTLIST for any edit that contains this music sequence, you must first go into the screwdriver and highlight "TRACE GHOSTS TO SHOTS." This will generate a new edit with the name "TRACE" in parentheses. For example, REEL 3(TRACE). Make your EDLs and CUTLISTS from this edit. The "TRACE" edit has the proper source timecode of the original shots, not of the sync-ghosts.
Melissa Kent is an assistant editor.   This is an expanded version of an article that appeared in The Motion Picture Editors Guild Newsletter Vol. 18, No. 1 - Jan/Feb 1997   Guild Home | Newsletter Home | Top of Page   Copyright © 1996, All Rights Reserved by The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 776